


Wizarding Education Around the World

by joisbishmyoga



Series: Wizarding High Essays [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Essay fic, Gen, boarding style everywhere is also bs, eleven schools of magic is total bs, ilvermorny is made of lies and eurocentrism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:59:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7573246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everyone studies at boarding schools.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wizarding Education Around the World

**Author's Note:**

> ok so apparently I should actually check the wikia before writing things

Globally, there are three styles of Wizarding schooling.  From most to least famous, and least to most common, they are the European, Sino-American, and Traditional models.  All of them have their strengths and drawbacks.  
  
After Rowling's infamous political satire, most well-known type of wizarding education became the European model: a secondary-level boarding school.  This classification does include schools that offer university degrees, but not those which are solely university-level.  The cutoff point for defining a European school rather than a university is generally around 80% university enrollment, so there are only eleven of these in the world.  For scholars taught in the other two styles, the consensus is that the schools provide brand recognition more than a quality education.  However, the European model provides a consistent result, unlike the other two which tend to be hampered by wildly differing resources between facilities.  
  
The Sino-American school system is a network of day schools and extracurriculars under the control of some form of centralized administration, most like the current Muggle model for compulsory education.  Arguably the most recent style of schooling, this form includes and is named for China's civil exams (divorced from the Muggle civil exams when the latter were ended in 1905) and America's learn-by-mail programs for white Muggleborns.  Critics contend that the quality of the day schools range from top-notch to dreadful, and the bureaucracy makes it nigh impossible to address the problems, however the same critics agree that the curriculums are much better than the eleven European schools' in both quality and number of course offerings.  
  
Last, and by far the most common, is the Traditional manner: over half the world's population learns magic via some form of apprenticeship.  The magic in these cases is almost always an aspect of the local religion, whether that is Hindu, Buddhist, First Nations, African, Aborigine, Shinto, or more recent developments like Voodoo, Santeria, and Wicca.  While never comprehensive, Traditional education is prone to creating expert specialists, and is the sole safe method for handing down spells bound to family lines.  
  
All three types of magical schooling have their drawbacks, but perhaps those can be overcome by taking inspiration from the others' strengths.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Good research. Work on those conclusions! A single sentence is not a paragraph. 85% B


End file.
